Kevin Rose

Biography

By Glenn McFarlane:

If the essence of football is about rising to the occasion, and giving your best when the greatest reward is at stake, Kevin Rose deserves to rank highly at the Collingwood Football Club.
He might not have possessed the finest set of skills, and he might sometimes have been unfairly judged in comparison to his almost peerless brother, Bob, but Kevin Rose was a solid contributor who rarely let his teammates down in 10 seasons and 159 matches.

Across that span of time, he played in four Grand Finals, and although he only won flag, Rose was a considerable performer in all of them.

He came to the club from Nyah West – as Bob had – and would be third of four Rose brothers to represent the Magpies in the seniors.

His association with Collingwood started as a 15-year-old in the under 19s in 1955 – in Bob’s last year as a Magpie player – and it would take him considerable time to make his mark on the club.

Finally, in 1958, Kevin Rose got his chance, and he would grasp it with open arms, and a steely determination to succeed.

Rose would win the club’s reserves best-and-fairest in that memorable season, but he got his chance late in the year to push for senior selection.

He made his senior debut against Carlton in Round 16, but spent the first three of his matches as the reserve. His first full game came in the 1958 preliminary final against North Melbourne, and he would perform well enough to guarantee his spot in the Grand Final against Melbourne the following week.

On that famous day in Collingwood’s history, the team had seven players who had played fewer than 20 matches, and the average age was 22 years and 344 days. Rose was in his fifth game – and only his second full game – and he was only 19 years of age. But he played his role at half-back well in what was arguably the biggest upset in Grand Final history, as the young Magpies downed the Demons.

He only managed three games the following year, but went on to prove himself as a durable footballer in the years after – once playing 112 games in succession.

Rose had a competitive spirit and a team-first attitude that endeared him to coach Phonse Kyne in his early years, even if sometimes his ungainly kicking style caused some heartburn.

He explained in A Century of the Best: “I learned early just to play within my limitations, and to make the most out of what ability I did have. I guess I was never in the first three picked each week, but I still played a lot of games.”

Few Collingwood players could hold their heads up high in the 1960 Grand Final thrashing at the hands of Melbourne, but Rose was one of them. He never stopped trying, even though the odds were against him and the game – and the premiership – was long gone.

But it was his performance on Ron Barassi in the 1964 Grand Final that won him the highest individual accolades. By that stage, Rose had transformed into an industrious ruck rover and his brother Bob was in his first year of coaching Collingwood.

Kevin kept the game’s highest-profile and most-damaging player uncharacteristically quiet. At one stage, he also had the honour of having Barassi shifted off him for a period.

But sadly his hopes of another premiership were thwarted when in the dying moments of the game Demon back pocket player Neil Crompton streamed down the ground following his opponent and kicked the winning goal. It was heartbreaking for Rose, and for the Magpies, losing by only four points.

More pain would come two years later when St Kilda edged out Collingwood to win the 1966 Grand Final by a solitary point.

Fittingly, Rose’s last game came in a final – the 1967 first semi-final against Geelong. It shouldn’t have surprised anyone that he was one of Collingwood’s best players that day, kicking a goal and having more than 20 disposals. Frustratingly, it ended with a loss.

That was the end of Rose’s time at Collingwood as a player, as he moved to Prahran in the VFA where he had more success as a player and coach, and he also would later coach Fitzroy in the VFL.

But that was not the end of his contribution to the Magpies. Later, as a president, and board member, he served the club with distinction.